


It's Not As Bad As It Looks

by KingofTerrors



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 08:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingofTerrors/pseuds/KingofTerrors
Summary: ...but I mean, it does look pretty bad.Written for @princessamericachavez's (tumblr) Fjorester prompt.Jester's been messing around in other gods' shrines, and the other shoe had to drop in the end. But what's the worst that could happen?





	It's Not As Bad As It Looks

**Author's Note:**

> Just a couple of vignettes to explore what might result from Jester's messing around, and how she and Fjord might be affected by those results. Little bit of Fjorester goodness.

The Pentamarket was crowded and hot, even on a day like this on the cusp of autumn, right at the end of Harvest Close. The sun shone clear and bright on the knots of people clustered around stalls, waiting in line, watching buskers and hawkers, pushing through on their way somewhere else. The packed earth floor in this part of the market was nothing but dust, and clouds rose up around shifting and shuffling feet. The news of impending war had shaken the city, and the mood was tense, but even that threat seemed distant in the bustle of the economic heart of Zadash. 

Fjord and Jester wended their way through the crowds, ducking and side-stepping where necessary. Fjord led the way, his taller frame more easily spotted for folk to squeeze aside and make room, while Jester followed in his wake, clutching a fresh batch of cinnamon rolls to her chest. The smell wafted up from the paper bag, making her usual smile even broader. Cinnamon! She had finally found a baker who used cinnamon in her pastries! Wait til the others heard! There was enough in the bag for one for every single member of the Mighty Nein, and three for Jester. Perfectly balanced.

Slowly, as the pair made their haphazard way across the open ground of the Pentamarket, Jester began to notice a change in their surroundings. Something in the atmosphere shifted. The hum of hundreds of people talking, laughing, hawking wares… its tone had changed. Just a little at first, but enough to make her look up. 

Fjord hadn’t noticed it yet, but people were beginning to turn and look at them. Over to the left a Halfling woman nudged the human man beside her, and he turned, his face suddenly darkening into a scowl. Jester smiled at him, quick and bright, and the man’s scowl deepened before he turned and pushed his way deeper into the crowd without a word.

The sound around them was changing now. The noise of the crowd had changed to muttering, dark and angry. Faces turned to watch and stare. Jester hunched her shoulders against the attention and grabbed for Fjord’s hand.

“Fjord?”

He squeezed between a couple of humans blocking the path, pulling Jester along behind him. “Yeah?”

“We’re… uh… I think we’ve been noticed.”

“Noticed?”

For the first time, Fjord stopped his determined forward motion and actually took notice of his surroundings. “What…?”

Over to the right a noticeboard standing just above head-height had attracted a thick group of people, probably five or six deep. As Fjord and Jester watched, from back to front, the crowd parted like a flower opening, each person turning and shifting aside until every face was toward them. And now Jester could see what was on the noticeboard.

It was a poster. A picture in black and white. Not a bad rendition, she found herself thinking distantly. The horns were a little out of proportion, but the features were well captured. They had even managed to include the freckles across her nose. It was Jester.

‘WANTED’ the poster proclaimed in thick black print. Then underneath the picture, ‘Female tiefling, blue colouring, wanted for desecrating the gods’ Holy Shrines and spreading blasphemous rumours. All information to the King’s Hall. REWARDS GIVEN.’

“Oh… shit.” Jester’s voice was barely audible.

“Blasphemer!” a woman hissed somewhere behind them.

A man on the edge of the crowd spat in their direction, the spittle landing just short of Jester’s feet. “Fucking demon-born bitch.”

Jester took an involuntary step backwards, recoiling as if from a physical blow, but Fjord stood his ground, his lips curling into a snarl. “Say that one more fucking time.”

The man, rough-looking, with long greasy hair, looked like he might have wanted to say more, but his gaze moved across the pair, taking in the hand axe at Jester’s belt, the bunched muscles of her arms, the scars across Fjord’s face, and clearly thought better of it.

Jester plucked at Fjord’s arm, tugging gently. “Fjord… let’s… let’s just go.”

He turned, and seeing the expression on her face, just nodded. “Okay.”

They began to make their way across the market ground as fast as they could, heading towards the ramshackle houses and sheds of the run-down area of the city that held the Leaky Tap. The crowd moved with them. Not as a whole. Ones or twos at first, pushing through the others. But the mood of the marketplace, already tense, had grown dark and angry, and the whispers spread faster than anyone could move. “The tiefling… the blue one… desecrating…” A mob was forming.

Someone behind them pushed out suddenly, making Jester trip and almost fall, her pastries escaping her grasp to spill into the dust.

“Oh no…” Moving on instinct she reached out to reclaim them, and a heavy boot smashed down, the cinnamon treat crumbling into fragments beneath it.

“Come on.” It was Fjord who took Jester’s hand this time, and they dived forwards once more, the crowd swaying and pushing at them as they went.

They were nearly at the edge of the market ground when someone shoved from the side, hard enough to make Jester stumble and fall, hitting the ground hard with her right side, her horn jewellery knocked askew by the impact. The crowd surged forward immediately, the dull buzz of their muttering rising into a low roar.

But before they could reach her, Fjord was there, and now his falchion was in his hand, bright steel dripping saltwater into the Pentamarket’s dust. He reached behind him with his left hand, pulling Jester to her feet.

“Don’t y’all do anything stupid now,” he drawled. “Don’t nobody need to get hurt today.”

“You’re the ones who’ll get hurt!” A half-elven man on the edge of the crowd was inching forward, but froze as Fjord swung towards him, Jester released, both hands on the falchion now.

“You first.” He stamped a foot forward as if to charge, and the man flinched and stumbled backward, hands raised. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Ok darlin’, let’s go.” Fjord took one deliberate step backward, then another, watching the surly faces of the crowd in front of him. There was no response from Jester. 

“Darlin?” 

Nothing.

He sneaked a look behind him, to see nothing but an empty alleyway. Jester had disappeared.

Fjord grinned. “Good for you, Jes”. He turned back to the seething mob, their anger held at bay by the threat of the falchion. “Don’t be getting any funny ideas. I don’t wanna see any of y’all after this, y’hear?”

Then, a word. A single arcane syllable, and Fjord was gone, nothing but a trace of silvery mist where he’d been standing. A collective gasp went up from the crowd, and for a moment, they formed a frozen tableau, gaping at the space where a half-orc had been a second before. Then they surged forward, hands reaching for a possible invisible body, feet scuffing at the dust where he’d been standing, but there was nothing to feel, nothing to touch. Fjord was gone.

****

But not far. The Misty Step spell dissipated as quickly as it had formed, and Fjord was standing thirty feet away, tucked into the entrance of an alley in the sprawl of houses on the edge of the Pentamarket. There was no sign of Jester, but that was a good thing, Fjord knew. Thinking it through, she had probably headed toward the inn as fast as possible. She may already be disguised and unrecognisable. He sighed in relief and allowed his sword to disapparate back into the ether. So much the better.

Moving fast and stealthy, Fjord began to work his way back towards the Leaky Tap. He slipped from doorway to doorway, alleyway to alleyway, all the time keeping his eyes and ears open for any sign of pursuit. So far there was none. Mobs were stupid. They seemed to have lost him for now.

For all his attentiveness, Fjord nearly had a heart attack when a hand suddenly grabbed his arm. He spun toward the doorway the hand had emerged from, falchion reappearing in his raised hand.

“Don’t.” A blue hand shot up to grasp his own, wrapped around the hilt of the falchion, and the movement was slowed immediately. 

“Jester?”

She didn’t reply, instead pulling him gently but firmly into the shelter of the porch in which she had been hidden. 

“Jester… what happened?”

She had been half turned away from him, but now she faced him, and he was suddenly aware of the tears running down her cheeks. “It’s… it’s all my fault.”

“What are you talking about? I know your Traveller isn’t a ‘legal’ god around here,” the scare quotes were clear in his voice, “but that isn’t the same thing as blasphemy! Maybe they just got the wrong tiefling.”

Jester shook her head, smiling despite the tears still wet on her cheeks. “How many tieflings have you seen in Zadash, Fjord?” She didn’t even pause. “They got the right one. I thought that was a pretty cute picture, actually…”

“So that’s you.” 

Jester nodded.

“You been goin around… what… messing up other gods’ shrines or something?”

“Not seriously!” Jester protested. “Not breaking things or anything! Just… a drawing here and there… And the Traveller will have been pleased that his pamphlets are getting seen around town!”

“Guess they’re takin it pretty fuckin serious.”

Jester looked down, the spirit of a second ago immediately subdued. “I thought I was careful. I didn’t think they’d recognise me, Fjord, really. I was mostly disguised and everything. But then…” 

She took a deep breath, and Fjord could see the effort it cost her to still the sudden tremble in her voice. “They… they hated me. They were just… just… people. And they hated me.” Her voice cracked, and Fjord could see the tears beginning again.

“And they’ll find out I’m with all of you. Everyone will be in trouble because of me. What if they find out where we’ve been staying? What if they arrest the others?” Her panic was rising. “It’s just like at home. Will they want to execute us too? What will we do, Fjord?!”

Her hands had risen, her fingers curled against her temples, and her shoulders hunched, curling her body in on herself. Her eyes were wide now, staring at nothing.

Fjord reached out slowly, deliberately, taking her hands away from her head, folding them together, enveloping them in his own grasp. “It’s not as bad as it looks, Jes.”

A moment passed, then hesitantly her gaze rose to meet his own. She didn’t say anything, but Fjord could see the question there. The pleading.

“Really. I promise.” 

Jester’s lips moved as if to form a question, and he shook his head gently. “Oh, it looks pretty bad. You’ve pissed off a lot of people. But look Jes, I don’t think anyone in this here group isn’t running from someone. Or something. So you’ve made some enemies. So what? We’re not stuck here - we’ll find the others, we’ll get out of here, and we’ll try something new.” 

“I should go.” Fjord opened his mouth as if to say something, but Jester continued before he could find the words. “I can’t be with everyone. I’ll put us all in danger. I should just go. On my own.”

Fjord shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No.” Fjord released one hand to reach up and tuck a stray strand of blue hair behind Jester’s ear. “You’re not on your own now, Jester Lavore. No way I’m letting you go off. No way any of the Mighty Nein would. We’re in this together now. For better or worse.”

There was a silence, that stretched for two seconds, three… then Jester wrenched her hands out of Fjord’s grasp only to throw them around him, pulling him into a tight hug.

A little too tight. Fjord felt the air crushed out of his lungs. “Uh… easy… Jes…”

From where her head was tucked against his chest, Jester’s voice was small and soft. “Thank you, Fjord.”


End file.
